Monday, August 17, 2009

While all the 4 MPs and a majority of the State MLAs are committing their support to Raje, how on earth the Party central leadership can ask her to quit. I was always told that in a democracy, you choose your own leader. With that being the case, I think Rajnath is making a fool of himself by asking her to relinquish her LoO in the State Legislature. And what is LKA doing in all this? Ofcourse, he lost his chance to being the PM of India. But does not he have a moral responsibility in atleast playing a mentoring role to the younger colleagues, in a party which he has helped build from the scratch. Like Tavleen Singh said in a column in Indian Express, BJP is not dead yet but committing slow suicide in full public glare.

And one wonder what purpose is the Chintan Baithak going to do in Shimla later this weekend? They have effectively killed all those dissenting voices of Sinha, Shourie, etc so that they only have a coterie which will act as if nothing is wrong with the party and continue to live with their heads immersed in the mud.

There is a big vacuum in the Indian political scene and BJP can effectively play a future role as the Right of Centre party, only if they choose to. Othewise they are better off abandoning their political career as well.

For this, they must redefine Hindutva in the lines of Cultural Nationalism and rid themselves off bigots like Bajrang Dal, etc. That way, they can atleast count educated, middle class youth as their loyal voterbase in the years to come.

The need of the hour is for the party to show effective leadership and dynamism and not resort to blame game like in Rajasthan now and Uttaranchal (remember Khanduri) earlier.